For years to come when Libyans and others are asked where they were when they heard that the Gadaffi regime died and a new Libyan era was born - they will be able to recall with absolute clarity what they were doing and who they were with and at what moment they lost their breath in disbelief.
I was sitting in a production company in Soho working on a sweet rom-com about identical twins when I received the text from my father in Libya “Gadaffi has been captured”. At the exact same moment, in a Dublin university lecture hall, my sister received the text. My mother's phone also bleeped whilst walking past McDaids pub on Grafton Street - the place where my parents first met (and oddly somewhere I’ve always had an affinity with).
My sister, who has never quite known her Libyan roots, leapt in the air in the middle of her lecture and cried out ‘Gadaffi has been captured’. She then had that moment of realisation as she looked around at the bewildered faces at her uncharacteristic outburst, and immediately sat back down embarrased and shocked at her own reaction. For her, the last nine months have been a deeply profound and painful one of self exploration, forcing her to delve into the reasons why our father was largely absent from her childhood and life. She has read my blogs often expressing sadness and wonder at the lack of her own memories. She has come to understand the bigger picture of our family history and how she too has been affected by this monster of a man.
My mother had also wanted to scream out on Grafton Street at the fellow shoppers about the significance of this moment. I imagine the last forty years of her life flooded her senses – and given where she was standing felt extremely poignant. The good and bad times of love, the harrowing loss of the marriage which caved under the pressure of the regime and the fear it had instilled in her. There were of course other factors but this was one that had largely contributed to the breakdown and reconstruction of her life as a single mother raising children without her husband.
The lovely producer I was working with couldn’t have been more supportive. She asked if I wanted to leave and go somewhere but I wanted to be consumed by what we were doing. It was too huge to comprehend and I had to hold it together. It was still sinking in. I had this awful numbness and a disbelief that it maybe it wasn't true.
Within 30 minutes the media started calling for contacts inside and outside Libya - it was real. The BBC PM show with Eddie Mair called and asked if my mother and I would return to the show for a third interview. We did.
Immediately after I went to the Libyan Embassy where I was joined by my Irish friend Liam. ‘I’m Libyan today, sure isn’t everyone’ he said looking around. It took me a moment realise I was there not to mourn or celebrate his death but to rejoice in the new dawn. It was over. ‘Congratulations’ was the word on everyone’s lips - ‘Mabrook, Mabrook’.
It was at the embassy I first noticed people gathered around their mobile phones fascinated by the pictures of the final moments. I wasn’t quite so keen to look but when someone put the picture in my face, my stomach lurched. I thought I was going to be sick. Suddenly I didn't see his bloodied body image but another nauseating image had flashed in my mind - the one of myself looking at a picture of Tony Blair hugging Gadaffi and welcoming him back to the world stage ten years ago and I thinking he’s never going to go.
For those of us outside Libya we felt helpless, we knew what was happening on the ground and we felt whatever we were doing was never enough – could never be enough compared to what those there were enduring.
On Edgware Road, spirit of the revolution had taken hold and united us with chanting and singing, children handing out sweets and cars beeping wildly as they drove past. Women and men unified in that voice – our own. My new 9 month old friends and I hugged again and sang out hearts out – Libya Horra (with Liam of course and now Guy King, a film-maker friend who came to document this historic moment). I remember thinking I’d never seen so many people with my kind of curly hair. To be on Edgware Road, with the drums playing in the background where the atmosphere was extraordinary. My eyes fell on injured freedom fighters in the UK for treatment, who’d joined us to celebrate the liberation they had fought for. With the help of a delightful ten year old called Talal, who translated, I thanked them for what they did. They in return thanked me and others for never giving up on them. I was gobsmacked by their graciousness. I suddenly thought of the 100,000s of dead, the huge number of amputees and men and women who will have to live with the trauma of what they endured.
It reminded me we were not celebrating the brutal end of Gadaffi but the dawn of a New Libyan Era. The BBC World News approached myself and some friends to do a piece to camera. Ahmed was asked how he felt, Dalal what she thought for the future and I about Gadaffi’s death. My heart sank for I realised that yet again this moment, our Libyan moment, was being hijacked by Gadaffi. I heard myself say ‘I believe in justice and a judicial system and human rights must be given to all individuals regardless of their deeds. We don’t have any control on how this ended and we cannot undo his ending anymore than we had control or can undo how this started. Those that live by the sword die by the sword'.
It's true we were there celebrating not his death but the dawn a new Libya.
I spoke to a Libyan friend, whose family had been brutalised by Gadaffi up and up until 20 August either imprisoned, in hiding or killed. He wanted to know what it was like on the streets and I described the singing and the whirling cheers Arabic women make, of the injured freedom fighters I met and I could hear him smiling on the other end. He said he’d spoken to his father in Libya whilst he stood at the feet of Gadaffi’s whilst his body was being held briefly in his house as they decided upon the safest place to preserve and protect him. We both became silent at the irony of it.
In the shops the papers were filled with the inhuman way Gadaffi’s body had been treated - the pictures were brutal. I didn’t want to see them and if I am honest I would have preferred to see him face trial but do I have any sympathy for him? No. If anything my emotions are with the survivors, and the families of those dead and missing all over Libya and those who were tortured, maimed and raped on his orders.
As I walked back, I was stopped by a lovely East End pillar of salt neighbour. She was born and bred here and she’s a lovely lady. I don’t think she knows I’m half Libyan but she was ranting. ‘Those poor people’ she said ‘as if they haven’t had enough to endure for 42 years. Let them get on with their lives now. It’s just like those pictures of people jumping out of the twin towers – do we really need to see it’.
She’s right we need to move away from these bloody images and focus on the future. Libyans have not only got to rebuild their society, they’ve also got to create one. There have been no social relationships, civic and social organizations nor institutions that formed the basis of a functioning society. That needs to be established so we can determine the character of the society and its structure so that it is no longer defined by one man and his family.
Every Libyan now can play a role in making this a nation an inspiration to the world – for the power of the people has shown anything is possible.
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Monday, 24 October 2011
Monday, 3 October 2011
The Accidental Activist Blog 3
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous said Albert Einstein and you know what, I'm not far off agreeing with him.
It cannot be just coincidental that EVERYWHERE I go lately, I accidentally happen to stumble upon a protest of some form or other. It doesn't feel like the universe is trying to tell me something - it feels like it is shouting it at me. Were I to sum up the last ten months in one word it is PROTEST.
The protests in Libya had me gripped. I followed twitter obsessively, CNN and Sky were my constant companions. I reached out to any Libyan I met or saw on social networking sites and they reached back to me. In January of this year, you'd have been hard pressed to find Libyan strangers talking as we each feared the other could be a government informant, you'd be frightened of in some way endangering your family still there. We referred to ourselves as Arabs not Libyans to avoid our Libyan identy and society being discussed and defined by one man who is not representative of Libyans.
Rarely had I spoken of my Libyan past as it was too painful. That changed as I watched the women protesting outside the courthouse in Benghazi. I was drawn out of my thirty year silence about my Libyan childhood, I found my voice and I couldn't stop talking about it. On national and international television, other Libyans told their stories. My mother and I spoke, on BBC Radio 4 PM show, of how my parents had to ship me out of the country at the age of seven for my safety and it would be a year before we saw each other again. So many childhood friends wrote to me saying they had no idea I had even lived in Libya.
My reason for being in New York was not accidental but because of BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum @ The New York Television Festival. Following the festival, I moved from a hotel on 34th Street near the Empire State Building to my friends' apartment opposite Century 21, near Ground Zero just one block from the Wall Street Protests.
Every day we go down to lend our support - it is incredible the micro-city they have created.
There is a food kitchen, press station, water points, sleeping quarters with weather cover, cigarette rolling station, forum for discussion, banner-making stations - far more organised that the press is giving them credit for. Anyone who is in any doubt as to why they are protesting only needs to stand there for a moment before it becomes abundantly clear. We walked and browsed the signs and smiled touched by the positive energy around us.
This is a far cry from the ferial London riots in August 400 yards from my doorstep which said more about us as a society than about protests or rioting. Here in New York it is a peaceful protest, which at its worst has blocked traffic on Brooklyn Bridge, and has more to do with demanding corporate regime and society change. Just when I thought that this feels not a million miles away from the protests seen in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, although far less brutally contained, we saw a sign saying SPRING IS HERE - is that not another sign?
It cannot be just coincidental that EVERYWHERE I go lately, I accidentally happen to stumble upon a protest of some form or other. It doesn't feel like the universe is trying to tell me something - it feels like it is shouting it at me. Were I to sum up the last ten months in one word it is PROTEST.
The protests in Libya had me gripped. I followed twitter obsessively, CNN and Sky were my constant companions. I reached out to any Libyan I met or saw on social networking sites and they reached back to me. In January of this year, you'd have been hard pressed to find Libyan strangers talking as we each feared the other could be a government informant, you'd be frightened of in some way endangering your family still there. We referred to ourselves as Arabs not Libyans to avoid our Libyan identy and society being discussed and defined by one man who is not representative of Libyans.
Rarely had I spoken of my Libyan past as it was too painful. That changed as I watched the women protesting outside the courthouse in Benghazi. I was drawn out of my thirty year silence about my Libyan childhood, I found my voice and I couldn't stop talking about it. On national and international television, other Libyans told their stories. My mother and I spoke, on BBC Radio 4 PM show, of how my parents had to ship me out of the country at the age of seven for my safety and it would be a year before we saw each other again. So many childhood friends wrote to me saying they had no idea I had even lived in Libya.
When I joined forces with other Libyan women and we created campaigns under the Libyan Civil Society Organisation NGO, it led to speaking on BBC World News about Libyan women being marginalised in the government of New Libya - but not before spilling water down my dress moments before speaking live.
This campaign, and the news articles I've written, also brought about a meeting at UN Women here in New York. It is just like in films with endless corridors and blue doors and only took me 30 seconds to get lost. Upon finding my door, I knocked, was asked was I here for the meeting to which I responded 'yes' and was led a meeting room filled with people looking at me. I launched into my ‘Hello-I’m-Farah-Abushwesha,-I’m-the-Libyan-Irish-representative-of-Women4Libya-Campaign-part-of-the-NGO-Libyan-Civil-Society' speech before we all realised I was in the wrong meeting!
My reason for being in New York was not accidental but because of BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum @ The New York Television Festival. Following the festival, I moved from a hotel on 34th Street near the Empire State Building to my friends' apartment opposite Century 21, near Ground Zero just one block from the Wall Street Protests.
Every day we go down to lend our support - it is incredible the micro-city they have created.
 |
| Wall Street Banner Station |
There is a food kitchen, press station, water points, sleeping quarters with weather cover, cigarette rolling station, forum for discussion, banner-making stations - far more organised that the press is giving them credit for. Anyone who is in any doubt as to why they are protesting only needs to stand there for a moment before it becomes abundantly clear. We walked and browsed the signs and smiled touched by the positive energy around us.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
The Accidental Activist Blog 2
Mohamed Ali said you lose nothing when fighting for a cause and in his mind the losers are those who don't have a cause they care about.
I am one of those people who sees the window of opportunity and says YES because I believe by the time you think you are ready it is then too late. That doesn't mean I don't have those moments of panic after wondering what on earth am I doing.
When making my first short film No Deposit, No Return, a caper about a desperate women who breaks into a sperm bank, myself and Pippa Mitchell went to the Cannes Film Festival. We needed to raise money so we invited ourselves onto every single yacht asking men to donate their sperm and give us the proceeds. We were nicknamed the sperm angels. I remember thinking are we completely mad? We decided YES and kept going. We raised £60,000 in sponsorship and with Kerry Appleyard made our first film.
But this isn't film-making! This is asking women to stand up and put themselves forward for ministerial positions and potentially take the brunt of the blowback in a time of emmense social change. There really is no time for faltering or questioning on my part. Whatever little vulnerablites I may be feeling they are nothing compared to those faced by the ones who fought on the front lines or smuggled arms beneath their clothing. I am going to fight to ensure that those women have a voice in the Libya they fought for.
The happiest years of my childhood were spent in Libya. My father and I used to fish in the Mediterranean. We both had our own rods and hooks - "fishy dada fishy" was our phrase. I cried every time we caught anything and would make my father throw it back in the sea. I hated to see the fish squirm. Then I could speak both Arabic and English perfectly, except I spoke English with an American accent, as my teacher at Tripoli college was from Washington. I remember queuing up for my slice of pizza and pepsicola or narangha at lunch time.
I have to say I've never aspired to being a feminist just being feminine, maybe that's my conditioning. When I first started to meet and discuss the issue of women in new Libya, I was aware that women were already forming networks and becoming a united voice. There are women out there who want to stand. One of the main stumbling blocks is that there is a certain level of conditioning that suggests it goes against social and cultural norms.
What Libyan woman are facing now is what my Irish Grandmother and her peers experienced nearly 100 years ago. In the 1930s, she caused great controversy by taking a post teaching Irish in a protestant school - the Dundalk Grammar School. When the Catholic parish priest heard about granny’s appointment, he went to her mother demanding my granny not teach there. My great granny told him to find my grandmother another job. He couldn’t and the matter ended there with my granny taking the job. After she was married, my grandmother continued working. My mother remembers being in school and fellow teachers openly criticising my grandmother for being a working mother. My great regret now is that I never asked her what she felt being a pioneer. I imagine she’d have said something like what’s meant for you won’t pass you by.
I think too now of one of my Libyan aunts, who in the 1960s had been married at sixteen but returned to school and learned to drive.
At the end of the day, I've realised that whatever doubts or vulnerabilites I have, I cannot ask Libyan women to stand up and put themselves forward as ministerial candidates making history if I’m afraid of championing their cause. What’s the point of having a conviction if you are not convinced you can fight for it?
So whilst I will assure any minister in Libya that their seat is safe from me (these days my Arabic can just about ask someone for money or to close the door, and the worst name I can call them is a monkey), I will find the words to ensure that women are part of the conversation no matter how limited my Arabic is.
Click here to add your name to Women4Libya Petition to National Transitional Council for greater female representation.
I am one of those people who sees the window of opportunity and says YES because I believe by the time you think you are ready it is then too late. That doesn't mean I don't have those moments of panic after wondering what on earth am I doing.
When making my first short film No Deposit, No Return, a caper about a desperate women who breaks into a sperm bank, myself and Pippa Mitchell went to the Cannes Film Festival. We needed to raise money so we invited ourselves onto every single yacht asking men to donate their sperm and give us the proceeds. We were nicknamed the sperm angels. I remember thinking are we completely mad? We decided YES and kept going. We raised £60,000 in sponsorship and with Kerry Appleyard made our first film.
But this isn't film-making! This is asking women to stand up and put themselves forward for ministerial positions and potentially take the brunt of the blowback in a time of emmense social change. There really is no time for faltering or questioning on my part. Whatever little vulnerablites I may be feeling they are nothing compared to those faced by the ones who fought on the front lines or smuggled arms beneath their clothing. I am going to fight to ensure that those women have a voice in the Libya they fought for.
The happiest years of my childhood were spent in Libya. My father and I used to fish in the Mediterranean. We both had our own rods and hooks - "fishy dada fishy" was our phrase. I cried every time we caught anything and would make my father throw it back in the sea. I hated to see the fish squirm. Then I could speak both Arabic and English perfectly, except I spoke English with an American accent, as my teacher at Tripoli college was from Washington. I remember queuing up for my slice of pizza and pepsicola or narangha at lunch time.
I have to say I've never aspired to being a feminist just being feminine, maybe that's my conditioning. When I first started to meet and discuss the issue of women in new Libya, I was aware that women were already forming networks and becoming a united voice. There are women out there who want to stand. One of the main stumbling blocks is that there is a certain level of conditioning that suggests it goes against social and cultural norms.
What Libyan woman are facing now is what my Irish Grandmother and her peers experienced nearly 100 years ago. In the 1930s, she caused great controversy by taking a post teaching Irish in a protestant school - the Dundalk Grammar School. When the Catholic parish priest heard about granny’s appointment, he went to her mother demanding my granny not teach there. My great granny told him to find my grandmother another job. He couldn’t and the matter ended there with my granny taking the job. After she was married, my grandmother continued working. My mother remembers being in school and fellow teachers openly criticising my grandmother for being a working mother. My great regret now is that I never asked her what she felt being a pioneer. I imagine she’d have said something like what’s meant for you won’t pass you by.
I think too now of one of my Libyan aunts, who in the 1960s had been married at sixteen but returned to school and learned to drive.
At the end of the day, I've realised that whatever doubts or vulnerabilites I have, I cannot ask Libyan women to stand up and put themselves forward as ministerial candidates making history if I’m afraid of championing their cause. What’s the point of having a conviction if you are not convinced you can fight for it?
So whilst I will assure any minister in Libya that their seat is safe from me (these days my Arabic can just about ask someone for money or to close the door, and the worst name I can call them is a monkey), I will find the words to ensure that women are part of the conversation no matter how limited my Arabic is.
Click here to add your name to Women4Libya Petition to National Transitional Council for greater female representation.
Friday, 9 September 2011
The Accidental Activist Blog 1
Some people are born into things, others just wish for them, many are trained for them. Me, well I'm wondering did I fall or was I pushed into the world of activism?
For years, I’ve had a slightly nonchalant approach to politics. I've understood the value of a vote, particularly as my Libyan father never had a vote. When it comes to who to vote for, my Irish side of the family always went against the grain.
Unlike my friends' parents who voted for the more conservative parties, mine always went with the lefties, the socialists not the norm. Even St Patrick's Day was different. Other children went to the Parade. We would spend it on Baggott Street Bridge reading poetry with my parent's friends all of whom were poets, writers, artists and friends of the poet Patrick Kavanagh. Every year they gather there in memory of him as per his poem. It was the same at weekends I was taken on protest marches and I grew to love the cameraderie protesters had. When teachers asked us to talk about what we did at weekends, I found I'd be ignored if I mentioned mine had been taken up with protesting outside embassies or marching along O'Connell Street. Sometimes I used to envy the perfect family life I thought my friends belonged to. It was only years later I discovered that they too had their problems and envied my bohemian background. Teachers would speak glowingly of the EEC in civic lessons but when I'd bring it up at home, my Irish grandmother who we lived with, spoke disparagingly and made it clear why she'd voted against joining in 1972.
We were a family, fun in our disfunctionality - my mother, grandmother and I - with my dad visiting for short periods from Libya when he could get a visa. There were great discussions around the kitchen table, that could end in great rows. We could be kicking and screaming at each other one minute and hugging and declaring our unconditional love for one another in the flick of a light switch. We were a passionate, vocal family with a great sense of family love. It was just in the school yard and places like that that where you didn’t necessarily want to stand out for the wrong reasons that I felt a little lost. Added to this was that I was (and still am) terribly open, not realising that people take advantage of that. I would answer questions honestly or state things as they were, not realising how people could take offence or use it against me.
Unlike my friends' parents who voted for the more conservative parties, mine always went with the lefties, the socialists not the norm. Even St Patrick's Day was different. Other children went to the Parade. We would spend it on Baggott Street Bridge reading poetry with my parent's friends all of whom were poets, writers, artists and friends of the poet Patrick Kavanagh. Every year they gather there in memory of him as per his poem. It was the same at weekends I was taken on protest marches and I grew to love the cameraderie protesters had. When teachers asked us to talk about what we did at weekends, I found I'd be ignored if I mentioned mine had been taken up with protesting outside embassies or marching along O'Connell Street. Sometimes I used to envy the perfect family life I thought my friends belonged to. It was only years later I discovered that they too had their problems and envied my bohemian background. Teachers would speak glowingly of the EEC in civic lessons but when I'd bring it up at home, my Irish grandmother who we lived with, spoke disparagingly and made it clear why she'd voted against joining in 1972.
We were a family, fun in our disfunctionality - my mother, grandmother and I - with my dad visiting for short periods from Libya when he could get a visa. There were great discussions around the kitchen table, that could end in great rows. We could be kicking and screaming at each other one minute and hugging and declaring our unconditional love for one another in the flick of a light switch. We were a passionate, vocal family with a great sense of family love. It was just in the school yard and places like that that where you didn’t necessarily want to stand out for the wrong reasons that I felt a little lost. Added to this was that I was (and still am) terribly open, not realising that people take advantage of that. I would answer questions honestly or state things as they were, not realising how people could take offence or use it against me.
During the 1983 pro life campaign, my family was pro-choice. My mother sensitive to my age but understanding my curiousity told me that we cannot make that choice for another women and it is a deeply personal decision. Granted I didn't quite understand what she was referring to but I did know it was about a right to choose - freewill they called it in religion class. Around the time of the campaign , I was in a play. On the opening night, we were all excited and chatty, a mother had volunteered to do our hair and make up. I admired her broach - two tiny little feet. "It's the size of a baby's feet at the time of abortion, I'm a pro-life campaigner". For my ten year old head, I only heard her expressing her freedom of choice. I replied in a complete matter-of-fact way that my mother was pro-choice. Her face darkened and her manner towards me immediately changed. She yanked my very unruly, very frizzy, thick curly hair with a brush. Not linking the significance of my statement with her change of manner, I recall thanking God that she wasn't my mother and pitying her poor children, as I wasn't impressed with her rough manner but I offered it up for my art.
Growing up in Ireland
In the last few weeks without prompting I've become very vocal about women's rights in Libya and raising awareness about the lack of representation of women in National Transitional Council. I've set up a campaign called Women4Libya and have written a well received and read article in The Guardian online. I've been asked to write more and do interviews about the subject for both the BBC World News and radio.
Every day brings something new and weird. It's only in the last week that I started calling myself an activist - albeit an accidental one. I am passionate about the things I do - working in film, giving new screenwriting talent a platform through BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum and now women's rights in Libya. It is all about the freedom of choice but also about having a voice.
Here's the piece: Libya will only become inclusive when women are given a say in its future
Every day brings something new and weird. It's only in the last week that I started calling myself an activist - albeit an accidental one. I am passionate about the things I do - working in film, giving new screenwriting talent a platform through BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum and now women's rights in Libya. It is all about the freedom of choice but also about having a voice.
Here's the piece: Libya will only become inclusive when women are given a say in its future
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Praying for the end...
I had nothing to confess after my time in Dubai. Whilst having a great time, I kept up my running training and built my stamina up to long stretches. Well ten minutes stretches, which I must admit, were not due to perseverance on my part but the power of prayer.
When I first started training in the Emirates at the little gym next door to my friend's house, I only met other people intermittently and they weren’t gym bunnies like here but just ordinary nice, nod-hello sorts. Our interaction were nothing more than polite acknowledgement of the other's presence. I’d arrive as they were leaving or visa-versa but on the rare occasion when our meetings were protracted they really supported my training.
Oddly enough for me, I wasn’t interested in talking, so when I did coincide with Madame A who kept asking me curious questions about my friend - suburban curiosity - I rapidly discovered if I ran for longer stretches it avoided conversation. My panting didn’t allow for coherent banter – just large amounts of sweat as opposed to sweet trinkets of titillation.
Mister B was well built and clearly a regular on the weights. We’d only met as one of us was on the way out. He didn't seem odd or eccentric nor was he exactly handsome enough for me to take major interest in either. One morning, we both arrived at the same time, I got on with my tread-milling leaving him to what he was there to do.
I was counting the seconds on the timer of my machine whilst he rowed away. After five minutes, I heard this strange, loud chanting. It was coming from him. He was praying, rocking backwards and forwards in a deep meditative state.
It seemed rude to stare, so I averted my gaze nonetheless keeping him in the corner of my eye. I wasn't quite sure how to behave so I just kept running. As I reached my eighth minute I reduced my pace, and he kept praying but the oddest thing happened. His rocking slowed in time to my tempo. I realised he was swaying in time to my movements! I couldn't slow down, as I wasn't going to be the one to disturb the fervour of a man's religious incantations. Before I knew it I had succumbed to a spiritual jog with a man who was praying for whatever he was praying for and me praying for him to stop.
Slowly I forgot about him and surrendered to my internal monologue, which had become more like an internal confession. I was distracted by my worries about neglecting my blog duties, guilty about not running for long enough and felt like I was purging my running sins, except in this instance there was no priest to give me ten decades of the rosary to say. No, no, my penance was kilometres, sweat and the fear he'd never stop.
Just when I reached the point where I ran out of jogging transgressions, he stood up, nodded goodbye and left. There was I, left staring at the empty room, feeling expunged of all sprinting sins, lucid and suddenly very still.
When I first started training in the Emirates at the little gym next door to my friend's house, I only met other people intermittently and they weren’t gym bunnies like here but just ordinary nice, nod-hello sorts. Our interaction were nothing more than polite acknowledgement of the other's presence. I’d arrive as they were leaving or visa-versa but on the rare occasion when our meetings were protracted they really supported my training.
Oddly enough for me, I wasn’t interested in talking, so when I did coincide with Madame A who kept asking me curious questions about my friend - suburban curiosity - I rapidly discovered if I ran for longer stretches it avoided conversation. My panting didn’t allow for coherent banter – just large amounts of sweat as opposed to sweet trinkets of titillation.
Mister B was well built and clearly a regular on the weights. We’d only met as one of us was on the way out. He didn't seem odd or eccentric nor was he exactly handsome enough for me to take major interest in either. One morning, we both arrived at the same time, I got on with my tread-milling leaving him to what he was there to do.
I was counting the seconds on the timer of my machine whilst he rowed away. After five minutes, I heard this strange, loud chanting. It was coming from him. He was praying, rocking backwards and forwards in a deep meditative state.
It seemed rude to stare, so I averted my gaze nonetheless keeping him in the corner of my eye. I wasn't quite sure how to behave so I just kept running. As I reached my eighth minute I reduced my pace, and he kept praying but the oddest thing happened. His rocking slowed in time to my tempo. I realised he was swaying in time to my movements! I couldn't slow down, as I wasn't going to be the one to disturb the fervour of a man's religious incantations. Before I knew it I had succumbed to a spiritual jog with a man who was praying for whatever he was praying for and me praying for him to stop.
Slowly I forgot about him and surrendered to my internal monologue, which had become more like an internal confession. I was distracted by my worries about neglecting my blog duties, guilty about not running for long enough and felt like I was purging my running sins, except in this instance there was no priest to give me ten decades of the rosary to say. No, no, my penance was kilometres, sweat and the fear he'd never stop.
Just when I reached the point where I ran out of jogging transgressions, he stood up, nodded goodbye and left. There was I, left staring at the empty room, feeling expunged of all sprinting sins, lucid and suddenly very still.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
Does my arse look big in this plane? Beware of surprises!
After an eleven day break from training following an injury I found myself two weeks behind schedule but jetting off to Dubai for a break courtesy of my wonderful friend Louisa. So here I am almost a week in and working from my laptop, enjoying the heat.
Upon boarding my plane at Gatwick, I was dying for the loo. Even though the plane hadn’t taken off, I was so desperate I just charged in and without looking almost squatted on closed toilet lid. After doing the biz, I turned to press the flusher only to realise that there was a port-hole behind the toilet seat that given all the ground staff a mighty fine view of my rear activities which luckily was all they saw of me.
I told my tale of bums on planes to several ladies I was having Friday brunch with bubbles. Friday Brunch is a Dubai institution where basically thousands of Dubaians undergo what I can only describe as all you can eat ingestion marathon with champagne on Fridays. Our fare was unlimited lobster, crab, oysters, beef, champagne in nearby Abu Dhabi at the Yas Hotel. This is an incredible construction half on land and half in water overlooking the Yas Marina and Grand Prix Circuit – built like a gridshell which to my delight lit up at night.
Upon boarding my plane at Gatwick, I was dying for the loo. Even though the plane hadn’t taken off, I was so desperate I just charged in and without looking almost squatted on closed toilet lid. After doing the biz, I turned to press the flusher only to realise that there was a port-hole behind the toilet seat that given all the ground staff a mighty fine view of my rear activities which luckily was all they saw of me.
I told my tale of bums on planes to several ladies I was having Friday brunch with bubbles. Friday Brunch is a Dubai institution where basically thousands of Dubaians undergo what I can only describe as all you can eat ingestion marathon with champagne on Fridays. Our fare was unlimited lobster, crab, oysters, beef, champagne in nearby Abu Dhabi at the Yas Hotel. This is an incredible construction half on land and half in water overlooking the Yas Marina and Grand Prix Circuit – built like a gridshell which to my delight lit up at night.
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Anyway as the champers flowed my fellow brunchees and I, who consisted of a publisher, a diamond seller, a food stylist, a pilot, an artist and a writer) shared stories of bareness. Jane, a gorgeous mom of two (who runs for fun, has the figure to match and eats all she wants) told how just days before at the supermarket car park a strange woman kept waving her arms madly like she was furious at her and manically flashing her lights. Jane couldn’t work what was wrong with the car and decided this lady was obviously some road rage nutter so ignored her. The woman seeing Jane was not listening to her dramatically drove her car in front of Jane’s to block her exit and out leapt out, knocking on Jane’s window. Jane rolled down her window and was about to say what is wrong with you when the lady pointed at Jane’s breast which was hanging out of her top.
Another brunchee told how her daughter hugged her legs in a shopping mall and somehow managed to lift her dress up so high it had caught in her g-string. It was several moments of browsing before she caught sight of her reflection where it looked like her bum had eaten her pants and was now consuming her dress.
In Satwa, my favourite area of Dubai and the tailor district, there are loads of small tailor shops down little alleyways with funny signs indicating their existence – my favourite is “Take it Up, backside in ” underneath and “New Entrance Backside”. A fabric shop assistant told one pal here that “Feeling was free”. My favourite Dubai sign is Beware of Road Surprises – I love that advance Surprise Alert! Kind of takes the wind out of it a bit doesn’t it?
Anyway I’m back on track with regards my training and am now running for seven minute stretches with 3 minute walks three times. Today I’m aiming for the eight minute mile! And I have to say my bum is feeling really pert.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
London 10K - Training Day 8
Yesterday’s training session was sandwiched between prepping for BAFTA Rocliffe event with Julian Fellowes, writer of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey and shopping for runners. This training session was alas (sob sob) the last one where I will walk more than I will run – think this is the running version of maturing. Oddly enough my body also seemed to be ready for this progression as legs seemed to want to break into a sprint as soon as I set out!
After I finished, I showered and jumped on the tube to Camden to meet my 10K-before-breakfast-pal at Runners Needs. Rob, the lovely assistant, instructed me to get on a treadmill – offending me slightly by asking me had I used one before. I hopped on and away I went plodding along as they filmed the back of my legs. No corrections needed for me, he said, pointing to my feet on the playback but added I was a bit heavy on the swipe. Ermmm is that serious, said I... Seeing my dreams of entering the Iron Man fade away. No, no, said Rob, showing me (although I’m still not entirely sure what I was looking at) my suspended foot/leg passing the grounded foot. The right pair of all-singing-and-dancing trainers would sort this out, he reassured. I have to admit I was expecting them to cost a fortune but they weren’t hugely expensive and felt a million times better than my current multi-purpose pair. In fact I'd go so fa
r as to say they are gorgeous. A bit of me believes they will sprout wings and fly me to the finish line, like when I bought Final Draft, screenwriting software, in the hope that it would magically write the script for me.
After I finished, I showered and jumped on the tube to Camden to meet my 10K-before-breakfast-pal at Runners Needs. Rob, the lovely assistant, instructed me to get on a treadmill – offending me slightly by asking me had I used one before. I hopped on and away I went plodding along as they filmed the back of my legs. No corrections needed for me, he said, pointing to my feet on the playback but added I was a bit heavy on the swipe. Ermmm is that serious, said I... Seeing my dreams of entering the Iron Man fade away. No, no, said Rob, showing me (although I’m still not entirely sure what I was looking at) my suspended foot/leg passing the grounded foot. The right pair of all-singing-and-dancing trainers would sort this out, he reassured. I have to admit I was expecting them to cost a fortune but they weren’t hugely expensive and felt a million times better than my current multi-purpose pair. In fact I'd go so fa
r as to say they are gorgeous. A bit of me believes they will sprout wings and fly me to the finish line, like when I bought Final Draft, screenwriting software, in the hope that it would magically write the script for me. Talking of screenwriting, last night’s guest was amazing – Lord Fellowes or Julian (as he allows me to call him, in the same way he refers to Robert Altman as ‘Bob’) was hilarious. He came out with some brilliant lines and tips like “the best thing about winning an Oscar, which I heartily recommend to everyone...”, “if my grandmother were alive she’d have wheels and be a trolleybus” and “when you send script to your friends to read, ask them to mark each time they get bored!” Genius. The man is a very funny genius!
With funny in mind am loving this cartoon a friend drew in a birthday card – imagine the jeans I’d have to get to fit that fabulous bum!
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